Sustainability is becoming one of the most important factors for buildings nowadays. People are slowly becoming more environmentally conscious every day. Around the world, a lot of cities are still contributing to pollution. However, some are gaining the perspective to design with green technology to not harm the environment. This week’s post will be about the World Trade Center in Bahrain. This building is not just beautiful but also has amazing green technology. From the outside you see two admirable, symmetric towers connected by three bridges each with a wind turbine. The triangular glass buildings stand tall, blend in well with the sky during the day, and light up during the night.
In case you do not know, a World Trade Center is a building that brings together various business involved in international trade with countries from all around the world. There are over 330 World Trade Centers in more than 100 countries. So basically, people who want to become involved with international trade, rent out offices at the world trade center.
The special thing about the Bahrain World Trade Center is its breathtaking sustainable structure. This design was inspired by the Arabian “Wind Towers” in the same way that they redirect the wind from the sea to a certain area to be able to make better use of it. The buildings are two 50-story sail shaped office towers that have a height of 240m. These support three 29m diameter horizontal-axis wind turbines.
This building was designed by Atkins. Atkins is a British multinational engineering, design, planning, architectural design, project management, and consulting services. Atkins was one of the UK’s largest engineering consulting companies, and it is the world’s 11th largest global design firm. One of the main purposes in the design of the building was to portray to the rest of the world that Bahrain is bounded to become more sustainable through urban and building design. The idea of integrated wind turbines in the design had been considered by other architects before due to the proximity of the sea to the desert and the wind produced from it. A lot of other projects decided to not have wind turbines in their designs due to high costs; however, with this project the cost was not that big of a problem.
Even though this building did not intend to have low carbon emissions by world-wide standards, it has a lot of features that reduce carbon emissions compared to the other buildings in the Middle East. A list of these features can be found here.
The three wind turbines generate electricity for the building. They are facing the direction of the wind to maximize the amount of energy that can be obtained. The designers did a lot of research to be able to choose in between having fixed horizontal axis wind turbines, or fixed vertical axis wind turbines. After a lot of research and deliberation, they decided to have fixed, horizontal axis wind turbines.
One of the most important factors of the design of the building other than having wind turbines was having a very stable structure that could support the turbine over a long period of time. Designers realized that the best structure to maximize energy retrieval was to have bridges sustaining the three wind turbines. These bridges are able to be strong enough to not deteriorate over time due to fatigue. The bridges are 31.7m long and support 11 tons. Along with the massive weight they are able to support, they stay stable even with the vibrations from the wind and the wind turbine.
These admirable wind turbines give between 1,100 and 1,300 MWh per year. They also account to 11% to 15% of the office tower’s electrical energy consumption.
One of the early designs had solar panels integrated on the structure; however, the extreme heat conditions of the area prevented it. It wasn’t feasible for designers to incorporate solar panels in the final design. Atkins found another way to keep making the building more sustainable with green technology by making the glass covering the structure high-quality solar glass with low shading. This allows for the building to not heat up too much due to the fact that it is located in the desert and there are high temperatures most of the year.
It took 4 years to finish building the building; construction started in 2004. The total cost for construction ended up being 150 million US dollars. Since the wind turbines used were very similar to the ones from wind farms, there was not much money used for research
The most important part of this building is not just its beauty, it is also how it has become an example to other designers, architects, and engineers around the world. The World Trade Center in Bahrain uses the environment to get energy and does not harm the environment in any way. Engineers can be inspired by this astonishing structure to create more sustainable buildings all around the world.
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